Sony Group Corporation, commonly known as simply Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is known for its electronic products including TVs, cameras, gaming consoles, smartphones, and more
Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies. Not many know that Sony began in the wake of World War II
In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya, a department store building in Tokyo. The factory started with a total of eight employees. On May 7, 1946, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, which was later renamed ‘Sony’
After the war, the Japanese were hungry for news around the world. Many had war-damaged radios, or ones that had had the shortwave unit disconnected by the military police. Ibuka's factory repaired radios and made shortwave converters or adapters that could easily make medium-wave radios into superheterodyne, or all-wave receivers
Aside from radio repairs, Ibuka's factory worked on an electric rice cooker. The electric rice cooker was a primitive product, and its result depended heavily on the kind of rice used and the weight of the water. This rice cooker produced mostly undercooked or overcooked rice. It was the first failure for Ibuka and his staff
The company, now called Sony, built Japan's first tape recorder. The founders realised that to achieve success and grow, their business had to expand to the global market, which required labelling their products with a short and easy brand name. The name ‘Sony’ was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: the Latin word ‘sonus’, and ‘sonny’, a common slang term used in 1950s America
The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958. In 1955, Albert D. Cohen learned of the transistor radio advances being made by the company. As president of the Canadian import agency General Distributors Ltd, Cohen signed an order to begin exporting the TR-55 to sell in Canada. From then on, Cohen's company served as Sony's import agency for Canada
Sony was the first to popularise the word "pocketable" in 1957 when the world's smallest transistor radio TR-63 was launched. The first TR-55 transistor radio didn't fit inside a pocket, but in just two years, Sony developed a radio that could. The TR-65 was behind the evolution towards one radio per person from a radio per household
On December 25, 1959, Sony's first TV, the world's first direct-view TV, was announced. When it went on sale in May 1960, the TV8-301 8-inch portable transistor TV launched Sony's TV business. Two years later in 1962, the TV5-303, which was even smaller than the TV8-301, became a huge hit in the US
In August 1958, Sony started developing a two-inch Quadruplex format Video Tape Records (VTR) and announced the first Japan-made prototype in December the same year. Sony had the technology know-how on recording sound. Seven years later, in 1965, Sony launched the world's first consumer transistor VTR CV-2000
Sony's VTR PV-100 was the first "portable" VTR and was the predecessor to the video replays. The PV-100 was launched in September 1962 and was manufactured to order. Sony's VTRs were a huge hit at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964
In 1971, Sony introduced U-matic, the world's first videocassette format. In 1985, the company launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format. In 1987, it launched the 4 mm Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard
The first-generation Walkman launched by Sony went on sale in July 1979. Five years later, the world's first portable CD player, approximately the size of four CD cases, was launched. This device single-handedly accelerated the spread of the CD
Until 1991, Sony had little direct involvement with the video game industry. The company supplied components for other consoles, such as the sound chip for the Super Famicom from Nintendo. Two decades later, Sony now rules the gaming industry with the PlayStation
Today, Sony operates one of the world's largest video game console companies, PlayStation, and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment, it is one of the largest music companies in the world, and the third-largest film studio